ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to sketch out the emerging field of narrative research with reference to its application and possibilities in social work. Narrative research is one of the broad developing areas offering scope for new accounts of the individual, including life story, self-inquiry, personal experience, auto-ethnography, autobiography, discourse, ethnography and self-reflection. In learning more about lived experiences it is possible to improve practice in increasingly complex and changing environments. New and changing needs on the practice floor imply flexibility as well as participation and consultation, all of which are embedded in a narrative scheme of thinking and practice. This engagement is closely tied to reflective practice and self-inquiry both as a process and product, encouraging the ongoing need for self-reflection and critical examination of one's own identity and social location. This growing interest draws on narrative to describe and critically examine the experience of research itself, including its researcher's emotional feelings and experiences.
